Stormy Tuesday

We had some brief but strong stormy weather here this morning. I ended up without internet access for the first half of the day. Probably a good thing! ;) I did get a lot done.

I had a funny experience dealing with the phone service provider (Verizon). My phone line was hanging down into the street, low enough for cars to drive under but for trucks and school buses to hit. As it happens, we live very near the township school bus garage, so this was a major issue. Every time one of them hit it, the whole house shook. Frayed parts of one of the cables were dangling down to just a foot or two above the street. It was not good.

I saw a police officer stop by and take note of it, so I figured this probably would take care of the matter, but I figured I ought to call to let Verizon know of the problem too.

After navigating through several minutes of voice activated menus, I finally spoke to someone. She told me they could have someone out sometime on Thursday. I replied, no, you don't understand, this is a dangerous situation. She reiterated that someone would be out on Thursday. I think I may actually have said "you've got to be kidding," (I blame it on the provera ;) ) . She responded that that was what her prompt said. She then offered to refer my concern to Consumer Advocacy. I said she was welcome to do so, but this just would not do, to leave this hazardous situation as it was for three days. Again, she said she's let Consumer Advocacy know. I said fine, and asked if she would recommend calling the police. She said I should call them and they could pull the line to the side (clearly she didn't get the fact that it was entirely attached still, so this was impossible). I told her to tell Consumer Advocacy that her response was not helpful to me, and proceeded to call 911. I was really afraid that someone would get hurt or major damage would be done by one of the larger passing vehicles.

Talking to them, I learned that the police had already called Verizon and were told they would be there today. Within two hours, a very friendly service guy was on the scene and fixed it very quickly.

So, I wonder, why such a lousy response for the consumer, but good for the police? The actual service guy was fantastic, but the phone support was ridiculous. Consumers need to be able to get a response on hazardous situations too, not just law enforcement. Why bother the police with something that they can't fix?

Part of me is tempted to write and tell Verizon about this experience, because it isn't good service and no company should want to do that. On the other hand, past experience with them tells me it's unlikely they would want to change. What would you do?